Monophobia
by Jakuriin
Summary: Monophobia: an acute fear of being alone and having to cope without a specific person, or perhaps any person, in close proximity. In which everyone leaves and Tyson finally breaks.


**Monophobia**

Honestly Tyson wished he could understand why people always left. He knew of course that everyone had their own hopes, their own dreams and aspirations, dreams and aspirations that most likely did not involve him, but still he always wondered why.

It couldn't have been much later than midnight, as he sat in silence by the Koi pond. Hat lying abandoned beside him as he stared up at the summer stars. Feeling hot tears fall from the corners of his stormy blue eyes and slide down his tanned cheeks. He didn't even bother to wipe them away as he watched them fall onto the grass he lay on, the moon's light causing them to glisten momentarily before they disappeared from his sight.

What on earth was wrong with him?

He was shaking slightly, his hands trembling as he clenched his fingers around several tufts of grass ripping them mercilessly from the soil. A broken sob escaping his lips. He had no idea how long he'd been sat there. In fact, he couldn't even remember how he'd gotten there.

 _I don't want to be alone._

 _I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE._

Perhaps in some twisted way Tyson was kind of jealous of his former teammates. They all had plans, they had all found purpose.

Yet he was still here, lost, stagnant. Caught in an endless cycle of worthlessness and a desperate need for some sort of validation.

He needed people, he needed to know if he meant something, anything, to anyone.

But they all left.

They always left.

Except him.

But he would leave too.

He always left.

But Tyson loved him anyway.

And if Kai Hiwatari left again. Tyson wasn't entirely sure that he could cope.

 _I don't want to be alone._

More tears fell, fastly, furiously, his sobs becoming increasingly more desperate and his trembling more violent the more his thoughts spiralled out of his control.

 _You're nothing, to nobody. They don't care, no one cares. So cry. Cry all you want but it's still meaningless. You're still worthless, you're still alone._

 _The tournament is over, they don't need you anymore._

"No you're wrong, YOU'RE WRONG"

 _They're gone. Everyone's gone._

 _I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE._

 _You'll always be alone Tyson._

"No Kai's here, he stayed."

 _They Dont Care about you Tyson._

"They do care. They do!

 _They'll leave. They'll leave you behind. Just Like Your Father did, just Like Hiro Did._

 _You're alone Tyson. Completely and utterly alone._

 _He doesn't love you Tyson, he'll never love you._

" _I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE. I DON'T."_

He was screaming now, yelling at nothing but the night sky above him.

He dug his nails into his skin, dragging them down his forearms in one last desperate attempt to distract himself from his deafening thoughts.

He watched unblinkingly as the blood from his now reopened wound (a result of his recent battle with Brooklyn) trailed down his smooth, tanned skin, landing on a blade of green grass beside him.

Had he completely lost his damn mind?

He gave a bitter laugh. Probably.

It didn't matter anyway. Nothing mattered.

"I Don't want to be alone, I don't want-"

"-son, Tyson, dammit Tyson, SNAP OUT OF IT!"

Tyson jumped, he only now registered Kai's desperate grip on his shaking shoulders as he turned to meet a pair of brilliant crimson eyes. Tyson could do little but stare at Kai's milky, pale skin, for once free of his usual shark fin face paint. Eyes glazed over in what Tyson deciphered as...fear?

Why was Kai...frightened?

In his disoriented state, Tyson placed his shaking fingers on Kai's cheek, trembling fingertips ghosting over the russian man's smooth skin, before bringing it to rest on his thigh.

Without warning, Kai took Tyson's hand in his, his touch sending a jolt of electricity through Tyson's body as Kai gently maneuvered Tyson's wrist in order to inspect the damage he had inflicted upon himself.

"God Tyson, what on earth did you do to yourself?" he could feel Kai's breath on his face, his words seeping with an emotion Tyson didn't recognise.

"I Don't, Kai, I…"

"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?! HOW COULD YOU, WHY WOULD YOU?" Kai's voice echoed through the park, his anger dissipating as Tyson simply just stared back at him with a blank expression. Instead his voice cracked as a single tear slid down his cheek. "Don't you dare disappear like that again! I thought, I thought-" Kai couldn't finish as his breathing hitched and another tear slid down his face. The Russian's distress was all it took to snap the Japanese blader out of whatever daze he'd been caught up in.

Kai's lip trembled and honestly Tyson had never seen his Russian captain look so damn vulnerable. Again he brought his hand up to Kai's cheek, gently wiping away his tears with a trembling hand as Kai grasped it in his, before Tyson could bring it back to once again rest on his lap.

Kai's gaze was intense yet not frightening.

Neither said a word, simply staring at one another, frozen in place.

Finally Tyson spoke, his words so soft that Kai could barely hear him, yet his message rang loud and clear.

"Please don't leave me. I love you."

"Dammit Tyson. Damn You!" tears streamed down Kai's cheeks as he held Tyson tightly to his chest, cradling him in his arms despite Tyson's resistance as Kai desperately tried to regain control of his rapidly changing emotions.

"I Don't want to be alone Kai." with those words he collapsed into the other man, fingers gripping desperately at Kai's forearms as he erupted into a series of desperate, heart-wrenching sobs that wracked his entire body.

Kai just impulsively held him. Refusing to loosen his grip as he held Tyson to him.

He didn't understand, he couldn't understand, why it physically hurt him to watch Tyson break, why in that moment he swore he could hear Tyson's fragile heart crack in two, in perfect harmony with his own.

Max, Rei, Kenny, Hilary they had done this.

Tyson's father, Tyson's brother, they had done this.

Kai had done this.

He hadn't known. He had no idea that Tyson Granger had been the most broken of them all.

He hadn't known that his most precious person was on the brink of breaking...had broken.

He hadn't known, that the one thing Tyson had feared more than anything else in their big, wide, messed up world, was being alone.

He should have noticed. He should have known.

But he hadn't.

And now Tyson was merely a shell.

He'd allowed this.

He pressed a kiss to Tyson's forehead, a gesture that he himself had never used but instead merely observed it's positive effects.

He drew Tyson closer to him holding him, not knowing what else he could do to ease Tyson's pain. Unable to decipher the emotions consuming him.

It had to be love, a foreign concept to the Russian teen but an emotion he'd recently come to understand in recent days.

Attachment, affection. Everything he'd come to feel for Tyson without realising. Something that he felt he would be much better at showing rather than saying. However in this case actions were not enough. Tyson needed words, Tyson needed proof and Kai would try his damnedest to do just that.

To use his words, his words that to him always seemed so empty. But never when said by Tyson.

And never when said by him.

"I won't leave you. I'll never leave, not again. I love you Tyson, you idiot I love you."

Their lips crashed together, desperate, yet tender, their grips on one another tightening, their tears intermingling.

Kai knew that wasn't enough. He knew that both he and Tyson were broken.

Shattered to pieces.

But maybe just maybe, they could fix each other.

And maybe somewhere along the way they'd learn to fix themselves.


End file.
